


Anyone At All

by historiologies



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, You've Got Mail AU, side boochan, side cheolsoo, slice of life AU-ish, very slight angst with a definite happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 23:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15896613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historiologies/pseuds/historiologies
Summary: The one where Soonyoung owns a bookstore and flirts with a stranger online.orAYou've Got MailAU.





	Anyone At All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [woozdum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/woozdum/gifts).



> I miss your wit and energy in the GC all the time but I know you're out there conquering the world. I hope you know how much you mean to me and how I'm always wishing you the best and how happy I am to always be learning from you. You left a lot of room to manoeuvre for me based on your requests, and I hope this does not disappoint you!! Don't worry, I'll finish this! I promise. And there will be a hefty amount of your favorite Cheolsoo in it. So there. :P I hope you like it, and if you don't, then I'll owe you another one of these.

The news comes from Seungkwan.

“Hyung! Did you see the sign? A Kumiho Bookstore is opening up around the corner.”

Soonyoung looks up from the front of the store, where he’s shrugging out of his coat. “Good morning to you too, Seungkwan.” He pulls the cap off his head and hangs it on the ancient-looking row of wooden pegs by the door, the snapback looking alien against the deep grooves of Hangul carved along the wall, greeting new customers: 안녕하세요.

Soonyoung’s grandfather had carved it out for his grandmother almost fifty years ago, and his mother had it preserved when she ran the shop with his father for the last thirty. He runs fingers over the carvings gently, like he’s always done for the past twenty-four years as the shopkeeper’s kid, and in the past three he’s been the shopkeeper himself.

“Good morning, hyung,” Seungkwan says, exasperation soaking his tone. He rushes to Soonyoung’s side, walks alongside him as Soonyoung greets the other members of their scant retail workforce. “You must have seen the sign.”

“What sign? I passed another way today. It’s a lovely day for a walk, don’t you think? The leaves are starting to turn,” Soonyoung tells Seungkwan, patting his cheek with affection. Seungkwan had always been a worrier, but that’s what Soonyoung liked about him. He liked that Seungkwan seemed just as invested in the bookstore as he was, which is why he kept Seungkwan around and adjusted his hours around his university classes. “Good morning, Hyerim-noona. How are you doing today?” He ignores Seungkwan’s little whine of protest as he skirts around the cashier counter, and presses his cheek against the older woman’s.

“Soonyoungie, you’re almost early today,” she remarks drily, making him laugh. “Anything wrong?”

“Nothing wrong, noona,” he comments pleasantly. He goes to his tiny desk just behind the counter, where a pile of new books waiting to be shelved sat. He eases them aside gently so he could put his laptop on top of the desk. “Just a good day to be open for business.”

Strawberry Jam Books was named after the famous produce of their hometown. In the beginning, after his grandparents had moved to Seoul and opened up a tiny bookstore, they had also sold homemade strawberry jam in little jars his grandmother’s siblings brought in from Namyangju whenever they visited the city, alongside books from local authors and poets. They specialized in children’s books though, the love for them passing from mother to daughter and eventually from mother to son.

Seungkwan sinks into the little chair in front of Soonyoung. “Stop ignoring me, hyung.”

“I’m not ignoring you, Kwannie!” Soonyoung tells him. He looks his worried junior in the eye and folds his hands together. “Alright. Tell me what you saw.”

The currently blonde Seungkwan breathes in and lets out a dramatic sigh. “Okay, so I was on my way to work this morning and I passed by for coffee at the Tous Les Jours two streets away—”

“Oh, Channie works there. Did you say hi to Channie?”

“Channie who?” Seungkwan barks, but Soonyoung notes the pink flush across his cheeks. “Anyway, moving on, that’s not the point hyung.”

“What is the point?”

Seungkwan places both his hands on the table, palms down, and looks Soonyoung straight in the eye. “We’re next.”

Strawberry Jam Books survived the tumultuous decades filled with protests and demonstrations, rapid economic growth and expansion, and the rise of all the commercial bookstore chains popping up all over Seoul and the other more developed cities in the country. It survived because of the care that his grandmother and his mother had for the little boys and girls who came into the store, looking for a book they could read between the daunting piles of workbooks they had to go through for school and hagwon.

Nowadays, however, things were a little more challenging. Kids didn’t read enough anymore, and everyone older was into more educational or trendy reads. Then there were those pesky Kindles and iPads and tablets that made it easier to download rather than purchase books. After finishing his military services and his mother passing the bookstore onto him when his father had fallen ill, Soonyoung rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and looked for ways to address these problems. He’d put in a small non-fiction and bestsellers section out front. He did everything he could to wrestle independently published authors and poets to come in for book signings. He even started stocking Korean pop idol records and paraphernalia in the last year to get a different kind of crowd to frequent their store.

(Okay maybe the last one was for him, but he’s not going to give Seungkwan the satisfaction of confirming his theory.)

But it couldn’t be ignored anymore. Tiny neighborhood bookstores had new nemeses: technology and large bookstore chains gobbling up all the business, the largest of which was Kumiho Bookstore.

(Kumiho Bookstore had started about five years ago, and had steadily expanded into the largest, most impersonal bookstore chain in the country, stocking everything, including a lot of foreign titles. It was part book shop, part cafe, part music store, and one hundred percent commercial. They hired people who, Seungkwan had snippily observed one day, probably never even read the books they were recommending for sale.

Hyerim had told him to not be mean, but Soonyoung had seen her pat him on the back anyway.)

“You don’t know that,” Soonyoung tells him gently. “It’s always nice that people get curious enough to read more anyway.”

“Hyuuuuuung,” Seungkwan whines. “I love this job. I don’t want to lose this job.”

“You’re not going to lose anything,” Soonyoung reassures him. He pops open his laptop and comforts Seungkwan while he waits for it to load. “I have a good feeling about the rest of the year. Autumn is going to be a good season for us. We’ll stock those ballad albums the ahjummas love so much, and we’re going to be in the black come new year. You’ll see.”

Hyerim coughs softly, and Soonyoung tries to send her a telepathic message to keep quiet. Only Hyerim knows how badly sales have been doing for the past few months, and it’s taking a lot of Soonyoung’s savings to maintain the lease. Still, he tells his employees what he wants them to hear, because it’s what he believes. He has the popular internet personality Kim Mingyu launching his new cookbook at the end of October, and several independent poets and writers committed to coming out for their monthly poetry night sessions thanks to Seungcheol’s boyfriend Joshua’s connections in the indie circles. Sure, they could do with selling more actual books since they are a bookstore, but Soonyoung believes. Every time his mother checks in on him, he assures her that business is doing well, that he’s doing well.

The last thing he wants her to do is worry, especially with his father still recovering.

Seungkwan still looks uneasy, so Soonyoung gives him a bracing shake to his shoulder. “Now go and sell our books, Kwannie. Hyung is counting on you.”

“Ow,” Seungkwan complains, making a face, but he gets up anyway and makes his way to the front of the store. Soonyoung watches him go, watches him fix a Big Bang poster on the right side of the wall before going out to fix the display of books out front.

He’s about to go in front to look the display over again when a tiny sound twinkles from his laptop, an alert that signalled that a new message had come in for him. He can’t help but bite down the smile that threatens to spread across his face.

“Noona,” he calls out, pulling his laptop up to him. “Call me when it’s almost time to open okay?”

“Okay,” she replies, fingers darting across her own desktop computer, plugging in the numbers from yesterday’s sales into the books.

Soonyoung peers over the screen, checking twice before he hunches over his laptop to read the alert that had popped up on his screen.

_New message from 6244seoul._

❦

“Lucky! Lucky! Where are you?”

Wonwoo scowls at the living room, his spotless Gangnam apartment empty and quiet and suspiciously devoid of one (1) ginger Maine Coon.

“Don’t make me come after you,” he warns, but already putting down the briefcase he’d just picked up and shrugging out of the trim suit jacket he’d just donned. He’s ten minutes away from being late to a brunch meeting but that could wait. His feline companion, however, waits for no one. If anything, she waits for that one singular opportunity to wreak havoc among the pile of contracts that he keeps putting off reading. One careless slip from him and he’ll be forced to use the old ‘cat ate my homework except instead of homework it’s agreements worth millions’ excuse to his father and the rest of the board.

He goes from one room to another, searching high and low for any signs of a fuzzy orange tail, sighing when he ends up in the kitchen and hears rather than sees the culprit.

“Stuck again, are we?”

Mournful meowing sounds come from the wooden trash bin he’d had installed precisely for keeping Lucky out. As he probably owns the smartest cat in the world, it took Lucky about a day to find a way to be able to get into the trash bin through the swinging door. Unfortunately for Lucky, the trash bin is easier to get into than it is to get out of. Wonwoo’s had to fish her out from her own putrid prison too many times to count, defeating the whole purpose in the first place.

“Okay, okay, pipe down, let me get you out.” Not even rolling up his sleeves, he pushes the door inward and reaches in, wincing as her desperate claws sink into his shirt sleeve. “Ouch, crap, easy Lucky. Easy.”

Mental note: change bins again.

He tries to make a face at Lucky when he places her on the gray marble counter, scrunching his nose up at her to communicate his disappointment at her getting into the trash again, but he fails spectacularly, unable to stop a giggle from bubbling out of him when an empty Chinese takeout carton sits loftily on top of her head. He removes it quickly, and quirks his mouth at her.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t leave without my goodbye pat.”

Lucky meows at him, pleased, and he laughs, gathering her up in his arms and carrying her into the small room at the back of the condominium unit where she spends the afternoons when he has to work in. He sets her down and she makes a beeline for the tiny jungle gym he has set up for her at the back of the room, locking the gate behind him after he’s ensured that she has enough water and food as well as a filled in litter box.

He looks down and sighs at the streaks of ketchup staining the forearm of his neatly pressed formal shirt, before making his way to his bedroom again for a change.

Five minutes later, he’s in a new ketchup-free button-down (violet instead of the pale pink one he’d worn earlier) and walking out of his apartment, messenger bag slung across his chest as if it didn’t contain multimillion won documents. He prefers walking to the office instead of taking one of the company-provided vehicles as he liked the solitude of the route going there, and it’s in this solitude that he basks in, admiring the discreet little pockets of greenery tucked in between the several large and severe condominium buildings populating this particular area of Gangnam.

He thinks about his episode with Lucky this morning and smiles to himself. Suddenly feeling inspired, he whips out his phone and unlocks it, scrolling rapidly to the LINE app. He presses a finger, selecting the most recent conversation he had, with the person donning the profile picture of a cartoon star.

_6244seoul : how do you feel about cats?_

He tucks his phone back into his trouser pocket, smiling to himself. He rounds the corner and sees his office building, tall and austere and rising into the sky, towering over even its closest neighbors. He quickens his steps and bounds into the hallway, after giving a friendly bow and wave at the security personnel at the door.

“Gyujun-ah! Seungkyul-hyung! Good morning!”

“Good morning, Wonwoo-ssi!”

He’s at the elevator and reaching for his floor when he feels his phone with a response. Trying to hide a smile from his other fellow elevator occupants, he peers at the response he’d just gotten.

__starboy : clearly smarter than us and must be revered and cared for, if we know what’s good for us.  
_starboy : early start today?_

Wonwoo bites back a sigh. He’s ready for the day to be over and it hasn’t even begun. He really hates board meetings — most of the members of the board aren’t even fully interested in what he and his family have been building for the past few years, leftover from the time his father had been peddling their concept to various investors who were now reaping the benefits of his family’s innovation. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, but it still irks. He prefers attending the bi-weekly synergy meetings, when the business unit heads came together to report on what each department was working on and looking for ways for each unit to strengthen the other. Creativity was often flowing during these meetings, marketing throwing out ideas for creative to bring to life and the research department buffing up sales initiatives with statistics and reports. These are things his father left for him to take charge of and he’s happy to do so, preferring to leave his father to handle the directors.

Unfortunately, as a member of the board, these meetings were mandatory. And so he must trudge on.

He enters the boardroom and nods politely at those seated near the door who turned to look at him. “Good morning. Nice to see you all again,” he murmurs politely under his breath. From the head of the room, his father raises an eyebrow at him but says nothing, waiting instead for him to make his way to the seat to his right. He’s the youngest director in the room by a country mile, but that’s no surprise — he’s the company CEO’s son and heir, and so exposure to the business was expected especially at Wonwoo’s age of 27. His MBA from Stanford and respectable service as a conscripted police officer also helped.

“You were almost late this time,” his father chides him, but the twinkle in his eye tells Wonwoo he’s not overly upset. He’s a handsome man, his father — tall and lean and with a head still full of dark hair. They shared a resemblance, and would never be mistaken for strangers just on looks alone, but it’s their little mannerisms, like the way they smoothed the front of their shirts and the way they pushed their glasses up their noses that really showed how close they were to mirrors, in every way except for one: his dad was straight, and Wonwoo was very much not.

“Almost had a cat incident,” Wonwoo stage whispers back, lips curving upwards. He places his phone on the table, pressing a few buttons to activate silent mode. He and his father were often bored to tears during these meetings, which was basically a bottom-line update on how their stores, flagship and franchise alike, were doing around the country. They knew how the stores were doing — they got their updates straight from the submitted reports at the start of every work day, but they did this every few months to satisfy the other members of the board.

His father winces, takes another sip of coffee. “You sound like your mother. Didn’t know that the whole cat thing would pass onto you too.”

“They’re good, intelligent companions, and they’re funny.”

“Wish you’d talk about your dating life the same way you talk about your cat.”

“I wish you’d stop telling me about all the women you’re dating as one of Seoul’s most eligible widowers,” Wonwoo retorts, but pats his father’s elbow lightly to show that it was meant in jest. “But we can’t always get what we want.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” his father jokes. They grin at each other companionably, before his father sighs and adjusts his tie. “Well, it’s about that time. We should start.”

“The sooner we get started, the sooner we break for lunch,” Wonwoo reminds him solemnly.

“Right,” his father nods. “We got the Japanese caterer right?”

“I think so,” Wonwoo says, peering around and behind his father to peek at the designs decorating the buffet table in the room behind them. “Yep. We got Takashi’s.”

“Good, good,” his father says. “Alright, let me just give Junyoung a word to let him know we’re starting.” His father angles over to the person on his left, going over the agenda for the last time.

 _6244seoul : unfortunately._  
_6244seoul : at least i have japanese to look forward to. please wish my attention span luck._

__starboy : lol. good luck! have the best day._

The conversation ends with a long string of emojis, one of which is a red heart, and it makes Wonwoo’s cheeks flush.

“You okay, son?” his father asks all of a sudden, and Wonwoo coughs in surprise.

“Fine, just fine. It was a little hot outside walking here,” he stammers, adjusting the collar of his shirt. He watches his father raise an eyebrow at him again, but sighs internally when he just shrugs it off.

“Take the car, next time, then,” his father says, before nodding at Junyoung. “Let’s get started.”

Junyoung nods back and clears his throat. “Attention, attention. The annual board meeting is now called to order.”

“Ladies, gentlemen,” his father says, in his stern CEO voice. “Good morning. As chairman, it is my duty to call to order the meeting of the board of directors of Kumiho Bookstore Corporation.”

Wonwoo bites back a grin, leans back and watches his old man get to work.


End file.
